Tuesday, August 23, 11 am and 3 pm Guangzhou time (post by Gord)

[Note: This is a long post today because it includes Stephanie's post from Saturday/Sunday which never showed up on our blog. If you only have a short period of time, skip to Stephanie's post at the bottom because hers is the more interesting one by far!]

Today’s our second day in Guangzhou. I’ve had some extra time to type up this post both in the morning and in the afternoon because Stacie is taking some naps (Sue said she cried a lot last night, which is unusual). While Stacie is napping, Sue and the other kids are doing lots of shopping at the local mom and pop stores surrounding the White Swan Hotel.

There are some particularly appropriate Chinese souvenirs that we bought today. Each one of us bought a ink stamp-type of thing (called “chops”) which allows you to stamp your name (in both Chinese and English) on letters and anything else you want.

There are a couple of souvenirs that are pretty cool. One of them is a small bottle, and based on a photograph that we provide an artist paints a picture of our kids inside the bottle. The photo isn’t put inside the bottle – it’s just used for the artist to copy to paint the picture. It’s pretty amazing. The other souvenir involves a photograph again, but in this case an artist takes a photograph of our kids and then engraves a picture of the kids on a small stone surface. Again, the photo isn’t placed on the stone – it’s just used for the artist to copy to engrave the picture.

There’s one souvenir that everyone gets for free for staying at the White Swan. We received two of them because we have two rooms. It’s a Barbie doll (an American woman) with a Chinese baby girl. I understand that we’re not supposed to open the box because these are very special. The box says that the doll is presented by Mattel to “adopting parents of Chinese orphan children staying at the White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou, China.” It’s a pretty neat doll and something that I think we will treasure.

There are some things that we’ve learned in traveling to China, and here are just a few:

1. Bring plenty of cash. Fortunately, Sue decided to bring more than I would have. Aside from hotels, there are very few places that take American credit cards. Some take typical American credit cards (Visa, MC, etc.) but only if they are issued in China. We found that out in Wal-mart, which is where I tried to use my credit card but wasn’t able to do so. I didn’t have enough cash in my wallet to pay for the stuff at the check out line, but fortunately one of the members of our group was right behind with cash for me to borrow. The bottom line is you can’t have too much cash in your wallet nor can you have too much cash back at the hotel room.

2. I’ve been able to borrow electricity adapters (from 220V to 110V) at all of the hotels we have stayed in. However, if you have plugs that have a 3rd prong for grounding or if you have a 2 prong plug with one prong larger than the others, then you may want to bring your own converter because each of these have created some problems. Ultimately, though, I was able to make everything work out.

3. Don’t bring a lot of food. We brought a ton of snack foods in the event we needed them for lunch or whatever. We won’t end up eating a lot of them and will leave them here because we need the space in our luggage. We didn’t eat a lot of the snacks because there are grocery stores where you can buy snacks, including some American stuff. The main reason why we didn’t eat a lot of the snack foods that we packed, though, is because there are always Western-style restaurants around. We have eaten two or three times each at McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut. This has been for lunch only, except on one occasion we did eat at McDonald’s for dinner when the kids didn’t want Chinese. We have typically eaten Chinese for dinner. (By the way, Stephanie and Ryan in particular are yearning for Taco Bell right now – Stephanie said she wanted to stop at Taco Bell on the way home from the airport in Grand Rapids.)

I received a question about why we are only staying 2 nights at Guongzhou when others have had to stay longer (sometimes up to 5 nights). Actually, most of our group is staying for 3 nights – we leave early tomorrow evening for Hong Kong, which the rest of the group isn’t doing. As to why we only need 3 nights rather than 5, though, I can’t answer that question. The question was also asked as to how far the new Consulate is from the White Swan. I think it’s about a 15 minute drive, but we won’t know that until late tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t have any new pictures from today that I wanted to post, so attached is a picture with Stephanie and Stacie in the pool in Changsha.

Hey! I was almost done with today’s post when I found out that I could finally, finally access our blog site (which calls into question my conclusion that the blogspot.com website was taboo here in China). I have now found out that Stephanie’s post didn’t show up last Saturday or Sunday when I was having major problems with the Internet. My brother Marc brought the problem to my attention, and fortunately I had Stephanie’s post saved as a Word file. So, the rest of this post is from Stephanie from last Saturday or Sunday, when we were still in Changsha. Enjoy!

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Saturday, August 20, 2005 about 4:30 pm Changsha time


Hey Everyone,

It’s Stephanie! To start, I thought that I liked Chinese food, but that was “Americanized” Chinese food. “Chinese food” is a fish that has the head, eyes, and gills still on it! Doesn’t that just sound nummy!:) Anyways, we have had an awesome trip so far, and if you have time, you can read on what I think about it.

Now, in case you didn’t know, I was the one in the family that pushed this thing along, so if you are wondering what I think of her, it isn’t the brightest question. OF COURSE I am so excited to have Stacie! We couldn’t have gotten a better baby for us if we had hand picked her. She fits right in, and is happy all of the time. She is starting to learn that we are her family forever and that we are not going to let anything bad happen to her. She trusts us, and understands that we love her so much! The Chinese women here are always wanting to hold her, but most of the time she just pulls away…..which is a good sign of bonding. She is one of the brightest one year olds that I have met. She continues to amaze us in everything that she does. It makes me wonder what we were doing without her! Some of her characteristics are starting to show, this meaning, she is very strong willed, if she knows what she wants, she is going to get it one way or another and it is hard for us not to give in to her.

The hotel is beautiful! There is staff everywhere that want to please us by helping in every way. There is so much stuff to do like play tennis, swim, ping pong, get a massage (where my mom is right now), go bowling…(I know, a bowling alley in the hotel, weird!), shopping, eat at the restaurant, and much more! Only one problem, the beds are like sleeping on a wood board.

China is so much different than the United States. Every time that we walk on the streets, it is so weird because we stick out like a sore thumb. Usually, people just look at us because my dad is so tall, but now it is because my brother has blonde hair and blue eyes, me and my sister are wearing shorter shorts than Chinese women do, we have 6 people in our family, and one of them is Chinese! It’s crazy!

If you are ever thinking about adoption please do it, I can guarantee that you won’t regret it!

So much love from the other side of the world,
<3 Stephanie